Angel of the North
by allie34
Summary: Chakotay and Janeway's son is injured in a shuttle accident, forcing them to confront thier problems. AU, set at the time of when Endgame would have taken place. Complete.
1. Changes

Disclaimer: The characters: Chakotay, Janeway, Tuvok and Paris belong to paramount, ironically StarFleet and the Federation do as well.

Angel of the North

This story takes place in an alternate universe, where Chakotay and Janeway meet about nineteen years before when End Game would have happened, and is set at about that time. It explores their relationship and lack of it. Knowledge of the book: 'Mosaic' helps, but is not essential, be warned that there are spoilers for the book, and some bad language.

Part 1- Changes

The hospital had that clean smell that could only mean that it was trying to cover up the smell of dying and rotting bodies. As he passed through the corridor, he noticed people sat on chairs against the walls, coughing and sleeping and crying and reading. He paid them little attention and tried to follow the directions a nurse had given him. The air was stale and sterile, and everything that he saw was white: the walls- white, the ceilings- white and the floors- off-white. Every corridor was like the next, the walls merged into the floors, merged into the opposite walls.

He entered the ward and carefully manoeuvred himself around a man in his early twenties shakily walking towards the water dispenser, relying heavily on a pole carrying fluids of medicine, for support. He looked into a room to the left as he passed and saw some poor sole strapped up to a life support machine, his breathing, his heart beat, his entire system done for him by a computer. What if there was a power failure? The thought crept into his mind, and the image of the life support failing came to mind, but then he remembered that they would probably have a back up generator, and the thought was wiped from memory. It was strange, the things that came to mind from having only two hours sleep in two nights.

It had been two nights since he'd been called and told that Ryan was in hospital. The first call, he hadn't thought much about it; he'd been in an accident, but was going to be okay. The second call had been from Tom, saying that his condition had suddenly taken for the worse, and so Chakotay had gotten on the first transport to Earth.

The transport could not possibly have gone any slower. It was strange that whenever he wanted time to just speed up and pass him by- it didn't, and when he wanted it to slow down, so he could take him to enjoy himself, it just seemed to go passed in a flash. This time the passing of time had been agonisingly painful.

He arrived at the correct room and looked in through the widow, where someone had left the shutters at the angle which was easily seen through. Ryan was in a bed, strapped up to one of those life support machines that was doing most things for him. His heart sank for a moment, he had hoped that by the time he arrived that he would be up and speaking, and joking about the accident- but he wasn't. He looked to the right, on the other side of the room, and saw his daughter sitting on her brother's knee, quietly being read to. After looking around the room once more he realised that their mother was missing from the scene.

"So you made it then," he turned at hearing her voice.

"I came as soon as Tom called me," he tried to defend him self; there were few excuses, "but you know how long it takes to get back to Earth from there."

She nodded, he wasn't sure if she had really heard him at all, as she turned towards the window and silently pressed her fingers up against the glass as she gazed across to the bed. "He came to for about ten minutes," she told him distantly, "he was hysterical; he was asking for you."

"I'm sorry I couldn't have been here," he said honestly.

Her eyes dropped and slowly she looked back at him. She looked tired and worn out, a mug of coffee in one hand, and the other hand fell from the window as she looked back round at him. "I said he was hysterical Chakotay," she said icily as their gazes met, "I don't think he would have cared had you been there or not."

He fell silent, they were both upset, and he knew better than to provoke her when she was already emotionally drained, and he could see she was already that. "What exactly happened?"

"Shuttle accident." She replied shortly. "He had a ruptured spleen, three broken ribs, a piece of debris sliced through his leg, narrowly missing an artery, and a second piece smacked into his arm and trapped it against the floor, shattering his arm into three more pieces than what he needs. It was the blow to the head that put him unconscious." She said, then paused as the memories of the doctor informing her of what had happened clouded her mind of a moment. "It was a couple of hours before the recovery team arrived," she said a little more heavily than before, "and by then he had already lost a lot of blood. After surgery he came to, as I said, but then slipped into a coma."

"Do the Doctor's know if he's going to come out of it any time soon?" his voice was soft and pained, and made her want to stop being mad at him.

She shook her head, "the longer he stays under, the less chance…" she broke off as the realisation that he may die dawned back upon her, and she had to cover her mouth to muffle the sob, and turn away from him to prevent him from seeing tears begin to stain her face.

He went to her; he couldn't stop himself, and it was all that came to mind. She felt his arms wrap around her, and turned in his embrace to cry gently against his shoulder. "Kathryn, he's going to be fine," he attempted to comfort her, "everything's going to be okay," but she wasn't having any of his soothing words

"You don't know that," she said as she pulled away from him, and his arms dropped from around her. "How can you say that every thing is going to be okay? My little boy could die at any moment, how could anything be okay after that?"

His jaw hung, he had nothing to say.

"And even if he does wake up, I doubt this will be the last time that I'm worrying about him in hospital."

"What do you mean by that?" he was genuinely confused, but saw her attention drawn behind him, and he turned to see Aaron standing by the door after having come out of the room.

"Aaron," Chakotay said, a little startled to see his son after so long.

Aaron looked at his father for a moment with something close to hate and disinterest, before turning his attention to Kathryn. "Taya's getting tired, I thought that I should take her back home."

She frowned, "what time is it?"

"Twenty two hundred- last time I checked," he replied.

"God, yes, take her home," she looked disappointed with herself for having not kept track of the time herself.

He nodded and headed back into the room.

"Now that I'm here, is there anything that you need me to do?" he asked once the doors had closed behind their son.

She looked at him, for a moment having forgotten that he was there as all, "no, it's okay, I think I can manage everything."

He would have said something to the contrary, but thought against it. The door opened and they both looked over as Aaron walked through with his five year old sister held securely in his arms. "Hey baby," Chakotay smiled at his little girl, but she just looked right back at him with sleepy eyes, only a hint of recognition entering them.

"I'll take her straight to school tomorrow if you're not back by then," Aaron said as he walked past his father and towards his mother.

"Thanks honey," she leaned forwards and kissed her daughter's forehead, before reaching up, ruffling Aaron's hair slightly, and then kissing him on the cheek.

He smiled at her, and then stalked off down the corridor.

"She's grown so much since I last saw her," he noted as he ran a hand through his dark hair, "I don't know why I expected her to-"

"She's just tired," Kathryn interrupted him, "any other time and she would have been over the moon to see you again." She didn't know why she was bothering to try and make him feel better.

He didn't really feel any better and just nodded solemnly. They stood there, outside the room, to one side of the corridor, for a moment longer, neither speaking, and neither particularly comfortable with the silence. "Well I'd better-" she trailed off and pointed towards their son's room.

"Yeah," he snapped himself out of his quiet revere, "is it okay if I stay with him for a while?"

She thought about telling him to bugger off for a moment, but the StarFleet control kicked in at the last second and she just hesitantly nodded, "I don't see that it should be much of a problem."

Without wasting any more time, the two of them headed back into the room. Kathryn made a bee-line for the bed, and fussed with her son's covers for a short while, before deciding that they weren't going to get any more perfect, whilst Chakotay stood awkwardly by the door entrance. Reaching out, she brushed a stray strand of his dark hair to one side before straightening up. "You can take a seat if you want," she said as she glanced back round at him.

Quickly he scanned the room, and headed for the seat that Aaron had been sitting on with Taya. "Aaron said that he would be taking Taya to school tomorrow, Marner's right?"

She looked over at him and frowned for a moment, before she remembered, "no," she replied as she sat on the edge of Ryan's bed, facing him, "Archer's; it's more convenient as it's not too far from where I'm working, or from the boys' high school."

"Oh," he replied, "I'm glad that we had that discussion on where we were going to send our daughter to school, I can see that it really helped!" His voice dripped with sarcasm.

"We had that discussion a year ago Chakotay," she answered angrily, "things have changed a lot since then."

"You know it's not like there isn't sub-space communication to Trobhan," he shot back, "you can't cut me out of my own children's lives!"

"You cut yourself out," she said with a note of finality, but he wasn't finished.

"What happens between us is irrelevant, they're still my children as much as they are yours!"

"You walked out on them," she continued to counter.

"I walked out on you," he replied venomously, "you're the one that changed!"

"It's one thing to move out of the house, but to move four light years away, it's a little far for a man who still wants to be actively involved with his children's lives."

"They could have called any time that they wanted," he insisted, seeing her mouth open to say something on that matter, but cutting her off just in time, "I did make an effort with the boys, but you used your usual tricks of manipulation."

"You left with hardly a word to either of them! They thought- they think that you don't love them anymore," her voice was strained, but then softened, "I can't say that I remained unbiased at the beginning, but I never said anything to make them ignore you as their father."

He stopped at her words, maybe she had a point. "Do you think-" his voice was much more gentle, "think that it's too late?"

She shrugged, "thirty percent chance that it is with Ryan, but nothing's stopping you with Aaron."

The thirty percent chance silenced him for a moment, sending a shiver down his spine as she cooling indicated that there was a thirty percent chance that he would- would what? Never wake up? Die?

"Maybe once this is all over the three of them can come with me to Trobhan," he said optimistically- on many counts.

She paused for a moment, letting out a sigh and nodded, "maybe. You can always ask them."

"And you'd be okay with that?" he couldn't say that he wasn't surprised.

"I can't see why I'd have any objections, providing its during the holidays; they miss enough school as it is accompanying me on some of my work excursions."

"StarFleet lets you take them?" he asked evenly.

She shrugged, "sometimes, but then I am an Admiral now, I more or less make up my own rules half the time."

He smiled slightly, "so how's that going?"

She sighed, "it's perfect because it gives the kids some sort of stability, the boys have been at the same school for some time now, and have good circles of friends. But then a lot of the work is boring and office based."

Chakotay shook his head, "I can't imagining you in an office- day in day out."

The corner of her mouth lifted slightly, before she consciously forced it back down, "I may get transferred soon, there's talk of me going to work on Romulus to assist the ambassador."

"Would it be for long?"

She shrugged, "maybe, maybe not."

"What about the kids? They couldn't go there with you."

"Aaron's talking about joining the academy, so he'd probably stay on Earth. Taya would probably go with me, the Ambassador already has children living there with him at the moment, and apparently hasn't had any large problems. Then Ryan, I've told him that he could chose between staying with his grandmother, and going with me."

"Sounds like you're giving it some serious thought," he noted.

Kathryn looked away from him and back at Ryan, "nothing's definite, and if things don't improve with Ryan then I'll turn down the transfer."

He clasped his hands together, and looked down at his entwined fingers. "But if Ryan does get better, and decides to go with you," he spoke down to the floor, "Romulus is six days travel from Trobhan, I wouldn't be able to leave the site for much more than a week at a time; I'd never get to see them."

"You don't see them anyway as it is," she pointed out.

He looked up at her, and for an instant their gazes met fiercely, before he looked back down at the ground, feeling very awkward. "I shouldn't have let it get as bad as this."

She looked around the room for her coffee cup, before spotting it on a table by the bed. Guessing that it was already cold, she picked it up as she stood, "I'm just going to get some more coffee," she explained, before leaving the room.

Once the doors had closed behind her, Chaktoay sat in his chair, in silence, for a moment longer, before he stood from his seat and moved to sit where Kathryn had been sitting only moments before. He looked down at his son. He looked like he was sleeping. One thing that hadn't seemed to have changed over the years was his son's face as he slept, he could remember the exact same expression being plastered over his face when he was a baby, only this time there was no dream filled twitching of his face, the only indication that it was in fact a coma.

Some markings on Ryan's arm caught his attention, and he saw what he assumed could only be the scars left from the injuries he sustained during the shuttle crash. The monitor by his bed flashed silently as it kept track of his status, and lights danced on the small device stuck on to one side of his forehead. There was a strap attached to his opposite arm, no doubt administering medication steadily into his system from the tube leading off to another device the other side of his bed.

Suddenly he was over whelmed with a pang of regret, of if-onlys- that maybe if he had have been there, he could have prevented the shuttle accident. He'd been over whelmed with such a feeling many times in the past two days- hence the sleepless nights, but this time, having seen his son in person, and seeing him in such a venerable state, the feeling was much worse. On Trobhan, he'd been able to fool himself that he hadn't been away that long, but returning to Earth, eight months later, he started to see the differences and the similarities to his last return to the planet after the Cardassian war.

The faces of the people that he passed in the streets were still as glum and as miserable as when he'd left. The buildings that had been knocked down after that Cardassian attack had still not been rebuilt, but instead a memorial site had been put in place. There was still heavy security every where that he went, still many unnecessary procedures to go through, to get from place to place. The planet and the people hadn't recovered from the war, and already, after only being back four hours, he started to realise that he hadn't really recovered either.

He turned at the sound of the doors opening, and saw Kathryn enter with a fresh mug of coffee. She flashed him a brief smile as he noticed another coffee in her other hand. She made her way over to him, and insisted that he stay where he was when he started to stand. He accepted the coffee that she offered, "thanks," he said sincerely, realising that he needed the beverage after missing so much sleep, and she sat down on the chair he'd been sitting on.

"I'm sorry about earlier," he apologised, "you're right, I shouldn't have moved so far away."

She shook her head, "I think we both needed the space, the kids didn't," she added as an after thought, "but I think we did. The Cardassian war changed a lot of people, it changed us, it changed our relationship, and some of our principles, I don't think we could have worked out the changes together."

He sighed, damn her for being so- he trailed off. So Kathryn. He grinned ironically; some things would never change about her, both good and bad. "Shame it took my dying son to make me realise that I needed to come back," he said bitterly.

"What went wrong?" her voice was barely a whisper.

He gazed across at her, hearing the pain in her voice and shook his head slowly. "I don't know," he said quietly, trying to clear up in his own mind exactly what it was, "I could say that it started as far back as eleven years ago, when the Cardassians attacked my home world. I could say that it was the regret of not joining the Maquis, but I reasoned with myself back then that I would have greater regrets leaving my family. Then I went and did it anyway," he said, gritting his teeth slightly.

She looked up at him, not waiting for her turn to speak, but waiting for some sort of understanding of what had happened.

"No, I think it happened when we were serving aboard Voyager together, when the war broke out," he said, for the first time knowing for certain that it was that moment when war was announced four years previously that had been the cause. "I didn't really notice it at first, but as we got further into the war you started to shut me out more and more. I tried to get you to open up to me, but then after a while I guess I kind of gave up. Then after Tuvok died, and you went on that Cardassian killing frenzy, I saw a side of you that I had never really seen before. I knew that part of you was there, I just didn't expect to see it."

He paused briefly. "And in the last two years of the war, we'd more or less reached a point where we no longer behaved like husband and wife. We were just the commanding officers of a ship, with our crew being our sole priority," he saw he mouth open to say something, but continued before she could, "I'm not saying that it shouldn't have been like that, we made an excellent command team, it's just somewhere we failed to keep a balance. Every argument on the bridge ended up in our bed and when you weren't speaking to your commander, you stopped speaking to your husband. You stopped telling me that you loved me." He paused briefly, "we stopped making love, it just became sex, and only to appease me or to get me to agree with a decision you were about to make."

"It's not like you objected though, is it?" she cut in harshly.

He looked at her for a moment, then nodded, "I'm not saying that it was all your fault Kathryn. There were things that I should have done-" he trailed off before adding, "that I shouldn't have done."

There was a long and painful silence, that seemed to stretch an eternity, Chakotay was the first one to break it. "What happens now?"

She looked at him and frowned.

"I don't want you to go to Romulus," he explained.

"It's not final," she sighed, "but even if it was, we'd work out a way for the kids to get to see you."

"It's not just that," he took a deep breath, "Romulus is too far away, and if you're spending most of your time there, then it means that- it would be too difficult for us to work things out, maybe get back together."

Her head shot up at that, "and what makes you think that there's any chance of the two of us getting back together?"

"We've been married for seventeen years, we have three children together, we can't just give up on that!"

She glared at him, her eyes boring holes into his, "give up? You're the one that walked out."

"And you've already agreed that we needed that space," he insisted.

"Yes," she said exasperatedly, "but a little warning would have been good, instead of me just walking in on you in the bedroom with your bags already packed."

He fell silent, and with him saying nothing more to provoke a retort, she too stayed silent for a while.

"I never stopped loving you," he tried again, "even when we were arguing, or not talking to one another, or when I left, I never st-"

"Chakotay, stop," she shook her head, her expression pained as she looked away from him.

He climbed off the bed and kneeled on the floor in front of her, reaching a hand up to turn her face towards him. He looked at her, and noticed that she had tears in her eyes; she was crying. "What's wrong?" he asked softly, but his question just caused her to cry more heavily, and she looked away from him. "Kathryn, don't shut me out, please."

"It's my fault," she blurted out, still refusing to meet his gaze, "it's my fault that Ryan's in hospital now."

"Your fault?" he asked, confused, "how?"

"He found out that… that I had had a miscarriage, he was angry with me when he ran off and stole the shuttle." She paused and gulped in a large amount of air, "when the medics finally found him, they said that he had come close to alcohol poisoning."

Getting over the knot in his stomach he gently caressed her upper arm, "you can't blame yourself for his actions."

She looked back at him, "you noticed the markings on his arms right?"

He nodded, "from the accident?"

She shook her head, glancing over at his lifeless body, "the doctors think that they're self inflicted- how could I not notice something like that?"

"He's sixteen, you can't be there every hour of every day," he pointed out.

"I should have at least tried," she insisted, "he became moody, and more intolerable than usual when you left, but I didn't even try to help him!"

"Kathryn, don't blame yourself for all of this," he pleaded gently, "I'm the one that started all of this; I'm the one to blame. If I hadn't have left, Ryan would never have done any of that stuff; maybe you wouldn't have miscarried."

She looked a little shocked when he mentioned the miscarriage, having not been completely aware of herself telling him that. Their gazes met for an instant, "it wasn't yours," she replied simply.

"Oh," he didn't have much else to say; he didn't know why he had expected her not to have started dating other men in his absence, except for the fact that there had been no other women for him. He looked down and nodded almost to himself, "this other man- are the two of you still together?"

"It was Brendan- before you ask, and no, we're not," she said as she looked down at him, biting her lip, not entirely sure if she wanted to continue, but decided that he needed to know everything. "I was already a month gone with his child when you left."

His head shot up, and he looked at her for a moment as the words registered with his brain. Slowly, he stood up and moved away from her, shaking his head and turning his back to her. He covered his mouth with his hand, pulling at the skin on his cheeks slightly, with only one thought running through his mind. She had blamed him!

"You-" he turned back round to her, his mouth wavering as his brain thought of something to say, but failing miserably. Suddenly some things started to make sense, the nights when she hadn't bothered returning home for the night; he had thought that she just couldn't bare to be anywhere near him, but she had been with him! He had gone to her office on several occasions, to surprise her with flowers or take her out for lunch, and he had always been there. He had just assumed that they were working on something together, but now he realised that they had been having an affair. Then there had been the week away that she had told him StarFleet was ordering her on, and he had called up her secretary who hadn't seemed to known anything about it.

"How long were you having an affair with him?"

She bit her lip, "four months, before you left, then another three after you'd gone."

He sucked in a breath, sure, the problems had started well before then, but that didn't mean that she had any right to cheat on him. "For the past eight months," he started in a louder voice than was totally necessary, "I've been thinking that there was something wrong with me! I mean, what kind of guy leaves his wife and children; his four year old daughter, just because things are getting a little tough. And then there's you, fucking one of my best friends, blaming me for all of our problems."

"It wasn't like that," she strained, standing from her seat.

He shook his head, "I don't need this right now," he held up a hand, "I'm going to check myself into a hotel, I'll be in tomorrow morning to see how my son's doing."

With no further exchange of words, he left the hospital room, knowing that if he stayed they would just end up in a shouting match.

End of part 1


	2. Replacement

Angel of the North

Part 2- Replacement

It was midday when Chakotay went back to the hospital room, where his son still lay motionless in his bed. The nurse said that Kathryn had been gone for some hours, and so he assumed that either she'd been called away for work, or she had finally become aware of her mortality and had gone to catch up on some sleep.

There were magazines that he could have been reading, or papers that he could have been rifling through, or coffee that he could have been drinking, and plenty of people that he could have been talking to. But instead, he sat on a chair, by his son's bed, his hands clasped together and his body bent forwards in thought. Every now and again he would lift his head, and just check that all the instruments monitoring and maintaining his son were still working, but then he would return to his hunched shape.

He had been sitting like that for close to two hours, although he had no idea how long it had been. He was remembering the first time that he had held Ryan as a baby; it had been different to when he had first held Aaron. Aaron was the first, and so Chakotay had been so scared, not only of holding the small frame, but also of being unable to take care of him when he cried out in the middle of the night, he was scared that he might not make a very good father, that his son would grow up to hate him. With Ryan it had all be different, he already knew that he could take care of a baby, and so he had no doubts when he had held his youngest son for the first time, just the sheer joy of helping to create the new life in his arms.

There was the sound of the door opening, and Chakotay looked up to see Aaron enter. His son looked a little startled to see his father, and then his surprise was replaced with anger; what right did this man have, to just walk back into his life? For a moment he thought about leaving, he thought about turning around and slamming the door behind him as he walked off back down the corridor. But then the Janeway stubbornness got the better of him, and he decided that if anyone was going to leave, then it would be Chakotay.

He dumped a bag filled with various padds and books against the wall, and grabbed a chair, moving it to where he had left his bag, sat himself down, and took out a book.

Chakotay watched intently as his son slammed his bag, then chair against the floor, then proceeded to unzip his bag and remove a book; it was Shakespeare. For a moment he wondered why his son was reading something so old, before realisation suddenly hit him. "Why aren't you in school?" he found his voice.

Aaron stiffened at his father speaking to him, but didn't glance up from his book; he wasn't really reading the words, just looking at them, he turned the page just for dramatic affect, to show that he really wasn't listening, or planning on giving a response.

"Aaron, I'm speaking to you," Chakotay was suddenly angry as his son continued to ignore him, but he attempted to keep his voice low and calm, "now tell me why you're not in school?"

With an eerie calmness, the eighteen year old marked the page he was on, closed the book, and placed it carefully back into his bag. He turned slightly, so that he was face to face with Chakotay, and gave him a look, so cold that sent a shiver up the older man's spine. "What's it to you?"

His jaw dropped for a moment, "I'm your father Aaron, I don't need a reason to ask why you're not in school."

The younger version of himself just stared blankly at him, "you're not my father," he replied calmly and steadily, no hint of sarcasm or venom in his voice, like he was stating a well known fact, not a deep wounding, lash-out.

Chakotay decided that he wasn't going to show any signs of anger, he could match his son for calmness any day; after all, he was the one that started it. "If that's the way you feel," he said at last.

The atmosphere was thick, it was like watching two adult, male tigers, gazing across at each other from opposite sides of the stream. Both looking like they are lazing in the sun, but the tense shoulder muscles showing that they are just waiting for the other one to make his move, so that he can make his. They sat and looked at each other for a moment longer, before Aaron broke eye contact, and Chakotay turned to look back across at Ryan.

It stayed like that for some time; not speaking to each other, not looking at each other, and it gave them both a chance to calm down and reflect. That was always the way it was with the two of them, they were both so calm and patient that they had never had a major argument with one another. Sure, they had had falling outs, but one of them would always realise that they were wrong, and within hours they would have forgiven each other. Forgiveness would probably take Aaron a little longer this time, but if any two people could do it, it was them.

Finally Aaron looked across at his father, who was mechanically twisting his wedding ring round his finger, and then back the other way. "Sorry about what I said," he broke the silence, and Chakotay looked instantly up at him from across the room.

He shook his head, "it's alright, you have every right to be angry at me; even I'm angry at me."

"It's just that after you left, things just got worse;" he tried to explain, taking a shaky breath, "I know things weren't great when you were home, but at least then we all had you, and then when you were gone, we saw mum even less, and when we did see her, she was always so upset…"

"I'm sorry that I went so far away," Chakotay continued as his son broke off, too upset himself to continue, "you know that I love you."

Aaron nodded his head solemnly, "I love you too dad," he said, looking down at the floor, determined not to cry.

Chakotay stood up from his seat, and crossed the room. When he reached his son, he placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, then ruffled his hair slightly. Aaron stood from his seat, and warmly and desperately embraced his father, gripping him tightly, not wanting to let him go. Chakotay held his son equally as tightly, and they stayed like that for a short time. Eventually Aaron tapped his dad on the back for release, and they broke apart, clearing their throats uncomfortably, recovering from their short moment of father-son bonding.

His father smiled across at him and shook his head as he chuckled lightly, and quickly Aaron joined him with a grin, and then a short bout of laughter, until they were both laughing hard. At some point a nurse walked in, and gave them a weird look when she saw them laughing, they managed to subdue their laughter until after she had checked on Ryan and left the room, at which point they went into hysterics. It took them a while to recover, and by the time they had, any rift that had formed between them, was on its way to being repaired.

They had moved their chairs and were sitting next to each other. Chakotay now had a coffee in his hand that he was taking sips from as he read a magazine, and Aaron was writing notes on a padd from the book that he was reading.

"So are you staying for long?"

Chakotay looked across at his son once he'd spoken, and looked momentarily uncertain, "in this room, or on Earth?"

Aaron looked up at his dad, and finally met his eyes, "both."

He frowned, "I'll probably stay here until I get too hungry and feel the urge to grab myself some dinner. But I'm not sure how long I'm going to stay on Earth; it all depends on Ryan."

"You mean if he dies or not?" Aaron looked back down at his book, his voice had an eerie sense of acceptance to it.

His jaw hung for a moment or two, "you think your brother's going to die?"

The young man with the same dark hair and complexion shrugged, "maybe, but I don't think it should affect your decision."

"What do you mean?" Chakotay crossed his arms.

Finally, Aaron put down his padd and book, and looked across at his father, "it's not really my business, but if Ryan wakes up, he's not going to be any better off if you and mum start playing happy families."

"And what makes you think that's going to happen?" he asked sternly.

His son looked at him for a moment, something close to disbelief on his face, "you and mum always to that; you always put a front on for us."

"We don't," he insisted, but got one of those looks that meant that Aaron was totally unconvinced. "Well we always thought that we did quite well to hide it from you," he admitted.

"It worked when I was younger I guess," he said thoughtfully, "but it's not going to work on me or Ryan now."

"Well if it's any consolation," Chakotay said slowly, "I don't think it's likely that me and your mother will even be able to be in the same room as each other, let alone pretend to get back together."

Aaron didn't say anything, and soon a cold silence washed over them.

V

He had done as he said he would, and gone out to get himself some dinner when the hunger started to overwhelm him. He had only been gone an hour, and didn't expect to see Aaron still there when he returned, and so wasn't surprised when he saw that he'd already left. He was caught a little off guard though, when he saw a doctor walk out of the room his son was in, as he approached it from the corridor.

Thinking against calling out to the doctor and asking him why he had been in there, and what the progress of his son was, he went right ahead into the room, seeing Kathryn already in there with Tom and Taya.

Tom looked across at his former commander, and gave him a brief grin, shifting Taya slightly on his hip.

"Daddy," the little girl cried out when she saw Chakotay, causing Kathryn to look up sharply at the man by the door.

Chakotay ignored her scrutinising look on him, and went over to where Tom was standing, who was quite happy to hand the little girl back over to her dad. "Hey sweetie," he said into her hair.

"Mummy, daddy's here," Taya pointed out eagerly, as she strained her head round.

"I know honey," she said softly, "can't you remember seeing him last night?"

The little girl screwed her face up as she thought back to the day before, then shook her head. "I think you were too tired to notice me," Chakotay explained, stoking back her long dark hair.

She looped her arms even tighter round his neck, and refused to let go.

"Tom has offered to look after her for the next few days," Kathryn explained his presence.

Chakotay nodded, he wanted to take care of his daughter himself; it had been so long since he had seen her. But he reasoned with himself that he couldn't just suddenly walk back into their lives and expect things to go back to how they were before. After a few moments he also realised his wife's subtle hint, and with some reluctance handed Taya back over to Tom, kissing the top of her head before he did so.

"I'll see you later," he promised, then looked across Kathryn, "maybe I could pick her up from school tomorrow, and take her out for a milk shake."

Kathryn looked at him, then at Taya's thrilled smile, and then at Tom, "that would actually be easier for me," he said, "it means that I don't have to rush the flight tomorrow afternoon."

Eventually she nodded her consent, and after some goodbyes, and some protests from Taya, the two of them left, again leaving Kathryn and Chakotay alone together in the hospital room with their unconscious son. They stood motionless for a minute or so, looking after the door that their friend and daughter had just left through, before Kathryn turned to him, "doctor Henley said that you've been here most of the day."

He shrugged and walked coldly past her, "so?"

"Chakotay, please don't be like this!" she pleaded as he sat himself down.

"Like what?" he folded his arms and looked across at her.

She stayed standing. "We need to talk about this."

"No, we don't," he looked away from her, still finding it hard to come to terms with what she had done.

"I thought that you knew about me and Brendan," she decided that they were going to have this conversation whether he wanted to, or not. "For a while I thought that was why you left," she said honestly as he looked at the floor, "and then when you never mentioned it, I slowly came to terms with the fact that you had left entirely because of me." Her face was pained, and she was obviously on the verge of tears, "I was so angry at you, and then when I found out I was pregnant-" she paused, "I don't expect you to forgive me, I just want you to understand… I want to understand myself."

Finally he looked up at her, "are you sure it was Brendan's?"

She looked confused for a moment, then when she realised that he was talking about the pregnancy she suddenly realised that she didn't have the energy to continue standing. "At first I wasn't sure to be honest," she admitted as she sat herself down on the end of Ryan's bed, "when I told Brendan that it was either him or you, I expected him to be really supportive, but he said that he only wanted to father the baby if it was biologically his."

She took a deep breath, "we had the genetic test, and determined the baby was Brendan's, but I miscarried only a few weeks later." She paused, "for some reason Brendan became angry at me; he couldn't understand how I could carry three of your children to term, and not his. We broke up a few weeks after I was out of hospital, and haven't spoken since."

"Why did you have the affair in the first place?" he asked softly, but she could see the pain in his face.

Kathryn shrugged, "we were having problems, we'd been having them for some time, and he was always there for me. The night you cancelled dinner with me and Brendan because of an argument between the two of us, I guess we both had a little too much to drink and well, you know the rest."

She looked across at him, but he refused to keep her gaze, "but why carry on with an affair? Why not just leave it at one night?"

"I don't think I can answer that," she admitted, "Chakotay, I'm sorry, I never meant to put you through any of this."

He shook his head, "I can't say I'm surprised, you've been doing this to me since we first met."

"What do you mean by that?" her voice was dangerously calm.

"You still weren't over Justin when you got pregnant with Aaron, and you've always blamed me for forcing you to move on before you were ready."

"No Chakotay, my sister did that well before I met you." She raised her voice a little, "if anyone's blaming anyone, it's you blaming me for getting pregnant, for bringing your career to a swift halt by forcing you to settle down."

She saw the anger rising in his face as he stood from his chair, "I married you because I loved you," he insisted, "and because you needed that stability after losing your father and Justin, and having a baby. I knew that I was your second choice, but I've learnt to live with it, but you seem intent on punishing me for replacing that man Kathryn.

"As for my career," he blew out a long breath, "I've always been much more content with home life than you have. I realised early on that you were destined to command star ships, and become a much decorated officer like the great Admiral Janeway before you. I realised that, accepted that, and promised myself to do whatever it took to make our family work, and that meant sacrifices, that meant serving below you, but for a long while it was worth it."

"And you regret that now?" she asked sharply.

"No," he looked sharply round at her, "before the Cardassian war started, we had a great marriage. The attack on Dorvan shook it a little, and then the peace treaty, a little more. But you were different then; I couldn't have asked for more support when I told you that I wanted to return to university." He sighed, "and then the war started, and I rejoined StarFleet to be your first officer again, a year later I started to notice that our marriage was failing. But we were in the middle of a war, so let it fail; I let you use me, I didn't stop you when you became reclusive, because if I had have done anything, I knew we would have failed as a command team. And do I regret letting that happen? Every fucking day!"

Kathryn watched him for a moment longer; it wasn't often that she saw Chakotay looking so distressed, but then she looked away as the words sunk in. What hurt her the most, was not that he had realised they were sacrificing their marriage for their ship and crew, or that neither of them had done anything about it, but the fact that he didn't expect her to have done anything about it.

Had she ever made an effort with their relationship?

"I'm sorry," she turned round and looked at him, he was sitting back down, breathing heavily with his head in his hands. He looked up at her as she said the words, but then turned away, the emotions exchanged as their gazes met having been too much for him.

There was a long and drawn out silence between the two of them, before she finally spoke again. "I remember one summer, about seventeen years ago, we were out on one of the meadows in Indiana, lying in the long grass," she started to recall. "You were wearing a deep red shirt, that had the top few buttons undone, and I remember thinking that you were going to get a triangle of tan there if you weren't careful."

He looked at her, his face passive and she paused for a moment, as she collected her memories. "It was about two weeks before our wedding day, and I had been starting to rethink my decision to marry you; I wondered if you were only marrying me because of Aaron, and if it was too soon after Justin to be marrying another man. But whilst we were lying there, out on the field, I just forgot every reason why I shouldn't marry you, and it was a euphoric moment Chakotay, I only remember thinking to myself: 'so this is what it's like to know that you'll be in love for the rest of your life'.

"Maybe up until that point I did think of you as a second to Justin, but I married you two weeks later knowing that I would spend the rest of my life falling in love with you." He looked deeply at her as her voice started to crack up, "you weren't second choice, you were the inevitable decision- I'm sorry that I didn't try harder, and that I've hurt you so badly, but please don't think that I did it on purpose to pay you back for replacing a man that I once loved!"

He swallowed hard, and looked down at the ground. Minutes passed, people moved outside the room, doctors rushing past the window to other rooms, and nurses consoled patients, but Kathryn and Chakotay stayed exactly where they were seated.

"You were wearing a pink floral dress that came just below your knee, it had a low cut and was held by thin straps, you wore it because you knew I liked it," his voice had at first startled her, but as he continued in his low and steady manner, it started to calm her. "You told me that you loved me, and for the first time I felt like you meant it; I was so surprised, that it took me a while to say that I loved you back. We made love in that field, not caring how well hidden we were in the long grass, and then you showed me to your tree refuge, where we climbed into the branches, and sat to watch the sun set."

"You remember," she said quietly, a soft smile on her lips.

He nodded, "do you think Ryan was conceived there?"

"I like to think so," she admitted.

There was a pause and Chakotay smiled, "let's hope that Ryan doesn't remember this conversation when he wakes up."

She returned the smile, "I don't think he'd ever forgive us for telling him how he came about."

They both chuckled lightly, the atmosphere was light for the first time in a long time. "Can I ask you something?" he went on almost hesitantly.

She frowned, "sure."

"How do you feel about me?"

Her frown didn't dissipate, "what do you mean?"

He paused, trying to figure out himself, exactly what he meant, "I mean… are you still angry at me? Did you miss me at all in the past eight months? Or were you glad to see the back of me?" he paused for a beat, "do you still love me?"

This time she leant forwards and pinched the bridge of her nose; he was asking her all of the things that she didn't herself know. "I'm not angry at you anymore Chakotay," she admitted at last, "and of course I missed you; but everything that I miss about you, was years ago, before the dominion war even started." A sad and distant smile took up residence on her face, "I miss our old house from when the boys were little, and I'd wake up in the mornings to find out that you'd let them both into our bed. I miss the neck rubs, the cooking, the times that we'd just lie on the grass in the garden, under the shade of that old willow tree, and just not do anything."

He smiled at the old memories, "then we'd hear the boys fighting and have to go and break them up."

She laughed, "and it was always over the same stuffed animal, that horrible thread bear!"

"Sir Edward was a legend," he insisted, "but remember those two months after we brought Taya home, and they were the best behaved boys anyone had ever seen."

She covered her face with her hand for a moment as she laughed, "only because they had nothing left to fight over after they had given Sir Edward to Taya?"

"Did we ever get that thing back from decon.?" he asked, laughing himself.

She shook her head, "I don't know," she said between bouts of laughter.

Eventually their laughter subsided, and the atmosphere between them was not nearly as thick as it had been previously. "So?" Chakotay said after some time had past.

Looking back at him she looked confused, "what?"

"Do you still love me?" he persisted.

It didn't take her long to think about it, but it took her a little longer to make sense of everything and put words to how she felt about him. "Of course I still love you," she said at last, "I've loved you so intensely for so many years, I don't know how not to."

"Do you think it's worth giving our marriage another shot?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied honestly, then took a deep breath before going on, "maybe we could go on a date some time, and see how things go from there."

Chakotay smiled up at her, "I'd like that."

End of part 2


	3. Angel of the north

Angel of the North

Part 3- Angel

It was mid afternoon and the sun was still high in the sky. Chakotay sat at a table outside the café with his daughter sat opposite him, delightedly sipping away at her banana milk shake. Personally he hated banana, and so only took a sip when offered some, to avoid hurting Taya's feelings. He had followed that sip with a large gulp of coffee to override the taste of the yellow milk substance.

"So when are you doing this play?" he asked, feeling a little guilty as he was only half listening to her talk.

"Two weeks," she replied with a smile, blissfully unaware of her father's divided attention.

Much of his concentration was centred on his son lying in hospital; the doctors had spoken to him and Kathryn that morning, and explained that if he didn't wake up within the next few days, then the chances of him ever waking up became less and less. However, whilst worrying about this, Chakotay was still able to grasp the gist of what his daughter was saying; she was going to play a fairy, or an angel (he couldn't entirely remember which, but it had wings) in a school play or production of some sort. There was to be singing, some very badly done acting, and most importantly, various amusing costumes.

"Daddy, will you come and see me be an angel?" she broke him from his thoughts.

He looked across at her, the promise that he would be there on the tip of his lips, before he stopped himself, realising that in two weeks he might be back on Trobhan, back in charge of the excavation. "I'd don't know honey," he said honestly, "I'd like to."

"So you'll be there?" she assumed with a smile.

Chakotay paused, seeing the delighted look on her face, and for a moment, she looked so like her mother that it took his breath away. "Sure," the word tumbled from his lips, and there was nothing he could do to stop it, all he wanted to do was make her happy, and he knew that just giving her that small fraction of his time would do that.

Her smile widened, and she sipped some more of her milk shake. He watched fascinated as her smile fell, and a frown over came her face, which was another exact replication of one of Kathryn's expressions, and like Kathryn, he could tell that Taya had entered a thoughtful mode. She looked up at him with those big brown eyes that said more than all the words she would ever learn ever could, and asked: "when will Ryan get better?"

"Soon," Chakotay said confidently.

"Then why does mummy keep crying?" she was genuinely confused.

That had him for a moment. "Do you ever cry when you graze your knee?" he asked slowly.

Taya shrugged, "sometimes."

"Would you cry if your favourite toy went missing?" he went on.

"I guess," she said slowly, not entirely sure what her dad was getting at.

"But you know that your knee will get better, and you know that mummy will find your favourite toy don't you?" She nodded, "so why do you cry?"

"Because it hurts, and I don't know where Lacy Stacie is," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He reached across the table, and tucked some of her soft long black hair behind her ear, "then maybe that's why mummy cries; because when you or your brothers get hurt, she hurts as well, and she's not entirely sure where Ryan is at the moment."

She looked up at him, understanding a little better than before what was going on, but still too young to completely comprehend. "Is that why she cried when you were gone?" she asked, "because she thought that you were lost."

"Maybe," he said, although he could think of other reasons as well.

They finished their drinks, and took a walk back through the park, arriving eventually at Tom Paris's home. Tom was a good friend of theirs; he had been forced into Chakotay's life, when Kathryn insisted on him taking a position onboard a ship they were commanding together. Tom had been in a bit of trouble, and served time in prison for it, but with him being the son of one of Kathryn's former Captains, she had felt some obligation towards the young pilot.

Initially Tom's roll had been merely that of observation, he had done some Cardassian recon in his time in StarFleet, and was asked to help locate a Cardassian ship that was thought to be causing trouble in the region of space their ship was patrolling. They were caught in an ambush, by the Cardassian vessel, and their ship was heavily damaged, killing their pilot in the process. Although they had managed to destroy the attacking vessel, their sensors had shown that more were on their way. Kathryn had sent Tom to the helm, and with his help they had evaded the Cardassian ships.

That had been eight years ago. They had returned to Earth, and Tom was released from prison. Although Kathryn's petition to get him assigned to their ship had failed, Tom was again on good terms with StarFleet, and quickly found himself work.

A month after that disastrous mission, StarFleet had announced its plans to sign a treaty with Cardassia, and Chaktoay had resigned his commission. He had stuck it out in StarFleet when his home world had been destroyed two years previously, in the hope that something would be done about it, but that had been the final straw for him. Kathryn had understood, in her own way, and supported his stand, but found that her feelings against the Cardassians weren't so strong, and so she couldn't do as he had done.

He had talked with her about joining the Maquis at that time, she had been less understanding towards that, but when she realised that standing against those that had killed many of his family was so important to him, she had said she would support such a move. In the end he had decided against it, realising that the family he had was more valuable than a family he had lost. So he had gone back to university and studied palaeontology, a move that had brought him closer to his two sons.

The door to Tom's apartment opened and Tom beamed at Taya and Chakotay when he saw them. "Hey," he greeted, "you two have fun?"

Taya smiled and went over to her godfather, who happily picked her up, holding her securely against his side. "You want to come in for a drink?" he offered his former commander.

Chakotay shook his head, "no, but thanks; I promised Kathryn that I would meet her at the hospital to check on how Ryan's doing."

Tom's face became more sombre, "and how is he doing?"

The older one shrugged, "he's not getting better, but then he's not getting worse, and I'm thankful for that at the moment."

The pilot nodded, "well I'll see you later then," he said, clasping him on the shoulder.

"Yeah," Chakotay said, turning his attention to his daughter, "I'll see you later angel," he said kissing her forehead.

She giggled, getting his double meaning, "bye daddy."

"Bye Tom," he gave his friend one last look before heading back down the corridor.

Tom watched him leaving for a moment longer, before turning back to Taya, "so what do you want for dinner?" he asked, disappearing back inside his apartment.

How Chakotay and Tom had become friends was a long story, but to put it short: when Chakotay had left StarFleet, quite a few of his so called friends had decided that it wouldn't be in their best interests to remain friends with a StarFleet drop out. Tom knew this, and so decided to make it his personal business, to befriend the husband of the woman who had more or less saved him from himself. They had gone to bars together, set up a few barbeques in the summer for the two of them, Aaron and Ryan, and eventually discovered a joint love of boxing, and before long they were boxing in the holodeck with one another, and going to watch games together, that had later expanded into many other sports.

When StarFleet and the Cardassians had eventually gone to war, some three years later, Kathryn's request to get Tom and Chakotay on board her new galaxy class ship had worked, and not before long the three of them were working together. The decision to make Tom Taya's godfather was a natural progression of that. Their daughter was only a few months old at the time StarFleet had gone to war, and thinking that the chances of all three of them being killed at the same time were quite small, it was agreed that should the worst happen to Kathryn and Chakotay, that Tom should take care of Taya and the boys.

Kathryn looked up tiredly when Chaktoay entered the hospital room, "you look terrible," he said, making his way inside, seeing her slouched in a chair, a cold coffee enveloped in her hands.

"Thanks," she gave him a sarcastic smile, "but you've seen better days yourself."

He crossed his arms and held a smile for a few seconds longer, before his expression softened, "go home Kathryn, get some rest."

She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting back the tiredness, "I can't," she choked out, "he might wake; I need to be here if he does."

Chakotay closed the gap between them, "Ryan needs his mother to be awake and alert when he comes out of this coma," he insisted as he crouched down in front of her and took her hands in his.

She knew what he was saying was right; the last thing their son needed, was to wake up and realise that his mother was worse off than him. She nodded defeat.

"Let me take you out to dinner, we can go to that French place you like, and then I'll take you back home so you can get some sleep," he suggested.

It sounded like a plan, and Kathryn knew from experience, that when everything started to fall apart, a plan was the only way out. She smiled up at him, and giving Ryan one last kiss on the forehead, they left the hospital together.

Dinner went well. She hadn't realised how hungry she was until their food had arrived, and she had managed to clear her plate with no help from Chakotay. They had skipped pudding, as they had always normally done, and went right onto the coffees. During that meal together, the two of them were able to come to some sort of closure over those eight months apart, and the time they had served together during the Dominion and Cardassian war. They had talked it over, and spent a great deal of time saying sorry for both of their actions. Kathryn apologised for abusing her position as both his Captain and wife, and he had apologised for giving up on her and walking out on their family.

As promised he walked her home, back to the same home that he hadn't seen for eight months; the home that he had left. They stood outside the front door for a few moments, enjoying the silence, until a tension built that became awkward, and they both realised that they didn't want the evening to end there. "Would you like to come in?" she made the first move.

He looked up at the house, all the lights were off, and he wondered for a brief moment whether or not Aaron was home. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asked in a tone that sent a shiver down her spine.

Their eyes locked, and suddenly she was lost in the dark depth of them; she saw the passion, the lust and a love so deep that sometimes she thought she could drown in it, but then she saw the security and compassion and she knew she was safe with him. She reached out, and tenderly touched his face, catching a flicker of hurt and distance in his eyes that made her understand the true depth to what he had said; he was worried that she was just using him, that again it might not work out between the two of them, and so she made a silent vow not to let him go so easily second time round. "I want to spend the night with you Chakotay. I want us to make love and I want to wake up beside you tomorrow morning."

He reached up, and covered her hand with his, "and what happens after that?"

The edge of her classic quirky grin crept onto her face, "marriage, kids, the usual stuff."

He smiled back, and understood why she wasn't making an promises; this wasn't about making a future, this was about remembering the past. No more words needed to be said, as he turned his face in her hand, and kissed her palm. Slowly, and painfully tenderly, he took her into his arms, and pressed his lips gently to hers. She felt him deepening the kiss, and so placed a hand on his chest making him pull back instinctively, to watch as she reached out to open the front door, and soon they were making their way up to the bedroom.

V

Chakotay woke the next morning, opened his eyes and was instantly aware of Kathryn lying beside him, already awake, and smiling across at him. He smiled back. "Morning," she greeted him.

"Morning," he leant forwards and kissed her briefly, but passionately on the lips, before looking over his shoulder, only to find that his bedside clock wasn't there.

"It's about nine," she informed him, knowing instinctively why he had turned his head.

"Thanks," he looked back across at her, "how long have you been awake?"

She shrugged, "not long," then a secretive smile came onto her face.

"What?" he asked.

Kathryn attempted to straighten her face, "nothing."

He raised an eyebrow, "tell me," he insisted, "or I'll tickle it out of you."

She physically moved back in the bed a little at the threat and giggled lightly, "it's nothing," she attempted to convince him. Then as he closed the gap between them and was seconds from tickling her, she gave in, "it's just you look so cute when you're sleeping… I'd almost forgotten."

Chakotay blinked once, then twice, then decided that the temptation to tickle her was too strong anyway.

Aaron innocently walked into his mothers room, only hearing her cries of laughter too late, turned back round, walked out of the door, and closed it behind himself, with a much louder slam than he meant to cause.

They both heard the door closing, and instantly stopped, Kathryn pushed Chaktoay off her and looked after the closed door, "Aaron," she called out after a few seconds, relieved that they were both hidden well beneath her bed sheets, "Az, was that you?"

There was a long pause, but eventually Aaron, who was still standing the other side of the door, leaning heavily on the wall behind him, attempting to recover from the shock of walking in on his mother with another man, called back, "sorry."

Again there was another pause of silence from both sides of the door, "was there something you wanted?" Kathryn asked loudly.

"Kind of," he replied.

Fed up of shouting through the door she invited him in, "it's okay, it's safe to come in now," she said as she pulled at the sheets to cover her more fully.

Hesitantly, the doors opened, and he entered looking round slowly at the bed. Seeing his dad there came as a big surprise, as he had half been expecting to see Brendan, having fortunately not gained a good look at what had been going on. "Hi dad," he said, for a moment not quite sure if he was actually seeing his parents in a bed together.

Chakotay smiled awkwardly across at his son.

"What did you want Aaron?" she got right to the point.

"Um," for a moment his mind blanked, before he pulled back the memory, "there's some doctor on the comm. that wants to speak with you."

Her impulse reaction was to get out of the bed and go answer the call, before she stopped herself, and looked expectantly across at her son, he eventually got the message without any exchange of words, and left the room, closing the door behind himself.

She took the communication in her office downstairs, wrapped in her pink silk dressing gown. "Doctor Frasier," she said, half aware of Chakotay entering through the open door, and standing by it with his arms crossed.

The woman looked hesitantly at Kathryn, "will you be coming into the hospital this morning?" she asked.

"Yes," the Admiral nodded slowly, "has something happened to Ryan?"

"I'll speak with you when you get here then," Frasier didn't answer the question, "bye for now."

Kathryn frowned, "bye," then the communication was cut from the other end, and the Federation symbol filled the screen.

Her eyes moved from the screen, and to the floor as she covered her mouth with her hand. "Something's happened to him Chakotay," she said after a while, still looking down at the polished floorboards.

He crossed the room, and stood by her chair, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off, and stood from her seat, "you know what Frasier's like; he's probably had to have another blood transfusion, and she's just being over dramatic about it."

"No Chakotay, I know something's happened; that look she gave me, I know that look," she said, moving over to the window and looking out across their front garden backing onto the street, "it's the same look I feel on my own face when I have to tell someone that a loved one of theirs has died under my command."

He wrapped his arms around her smaller frame, and tucked her head under his chin, "let's not jump to conclusions," he said into her hair, "we'll have breakfast, then go over to the hospital."

"What's happened to Ryan?" they both turned round at the sound of Aaron's voice.

"Nothing," Chakotay answered for the both of them, "just doctor Frasier wants to talk to the two of us about something."

"Then what's all this about?" he started angrily. They both frowned, and so he elaborated, "you two suddenly acting like- well- differently. What's happened to all of the hate, and the not speaking, and the angry looks?"

"You want us to go back to that?" his father asked calmly, his arms still wrapped securely around Kathryn.

"Yes!- I mean no- I mean, I don't want to be stuck in the middle again, I love you both, and I don't want everything to go back to how it was before you left." He stated.

"It won't," Kathryn said, covering her husband's hands with her own.

He looked at them for a moment longer, before deciding that he really didn't care, "well if you're going to the hospital, then so am I."

After exchanging a look, and silently agreeing that it was too much bother to force him into school, they nodded and went to grab a quick breakfast, showered and got dressed.

V

The walk through the hospital wards, for some reason, felt twice as long. They were directed to a waiting room, and waited for a few minutes until doctor Frasier found them, and asked to speak with Kathryn and Chakotay. Aaron was told to wait until they had finished speaking to the doctor, and this time did as he was told, realising that the last thing they needed, was more stress from him.

The small room consisted of a replicater, and twelve chairs. There was some man, about his father's age, sat in the corner, with his head leant to one side, supported by the wall, obviously asleep. Apart from that man, Aaron was alone. He got up and made his way to the replicater, annoyed to find, when his cappuccino eventually materialised, that for safety reasons, the drink had only been heated to a tepid temperature. He took a sip from the creamy coffee, before deciding that it just wasn't the same thing if it wasn't boiling hot, and recycled it.

He sat back down on the chair, and tapped his foot rhythmically for a few minutes, before deciding that he was bored of that. Overall, he was only in there alone for ten minutes, but each minute dragged on, and each second never seemed to want to follow the next. Eventually he heard people approach the door, and at first was relieved to see his parents enter. He watched their glum faces as they walked through the doors, and could see that his mother was on the verge of tears, although she seemed to be covering it up well.

"What's happened?" he felt his stomach knot several hundred times.

Chakotay, looked across at Aaron, and took a deep breath, "Ryan died last night," the words tripped over one another in his mouth.

"He's not dead," Kathryn contradicted as she sat down beside her son.

Aaron looked from his mother and back to his father, confused. "He went into arrest last night, when they eventually resuscitated him, his brain had been without oxygen for too long," he shook his head, "he's not going to wake up son."

Hearing his mother sob beside him, he turned his head, and instinctively placed a hand on her shoulder, Chakotay reacted just as quickly, and came to sit on the other side of her, pulling her body towards his own. She leant her forehead against his shoulder, and the tears flowed freely down her face. Chakotay wanted nothing more than to cry, but the numbness stopped him from doing so, and for the first time in his life, he felt nothing.

Aaron slouched heavily where he sat, his breathing heavy and erratic; his little brother couldn't be dead. It felt like only the day before, he and his brother had been on a sailing trip together, spending four days down in the Mediterranean until their food supplies had run out and they'd had to call their mum to come and save them. He refused to believe that they'd never do that again. He refused to believe that they'd never argue about holoprograms, or tennis scores, or salad cream and mayonnaise ever again. He felt sick, and feeling his stomach move up towards his throat, he staggered towards the toilets. Once in there, and in the privacy of a cubicle, he fell to his knees and threw up.

Chakotay had watched his son leave from the corner of his eye, and was torn; Aaron needed him, but then Kathryn needed him also, and so in his moment of indecisiveness, he stayed exactly where he was. Some moments passed, and Kathryn pulled back from her husband just enough to see his face, she reached up and placed a hand tenderly on his cheek, her eyebrows knotted, and her face filled with a pain that no amount of time would ever completely lift. Their eyes locked, and time seemed to stand still for Chakotay, until he heard her say the words: "we should…"

She broke down, unable to finished her sentence. He covered her hand with his own, and forced her to make eye contact again, "are you sure you're ready?"

The question just made her sob harder, "no," she said, attempting to pull away from him, but he wouldn't allow it, "convince me again that we have to do it."

He took in a deep breath, and summoned all of the courage that he could muster to say the words that she needed to hear, and that he needed to say. "Ryan can never come back to us Kathryn," he started with a shaky voice, and continued that way, "we need to let his spirit to move on, by allowing his body to die in this world."

She pressed her forehead to his shoulder, "do you really believe that?"

Gently, and rhythmically he passed his fingers through her long hair, giving them both the time to attempt to think clearly. "I love you, even though I cannot see or prove my love, I can only feel it. And so Ryan must still be with us, although I cannot see or prove it, I know I can still feel my love for him, and that's got to count for something."

Taking a deep long breath, she pulled away from him, wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand and nodded. "Find Aaron," she fell into command mode, and he was too weak to stop her, "he needs to be there."

He nodded, and they both stood. She went to find the doctor, and he went to find their son.

Aaron had long ago finished retching, and sat on the floor too stunned to move, with tears cascading silently down his cheeks. He was so lost in his own trance that he didn't hear someone enter the toilets and call his name several times, before stopping by the open door to his cubicle to stand and watch him for a few moments. Eventually Chakotay reached a hand forwards and placed a hand on his son's shoulder.

With the surprise of realising that he was not alone, Aaron jerked back violently, stood and turned around to see who was behind him in a matter of seconds. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," his father apologised softly.

Aaron hurriedly wiped the tears from his face, his breathing still ragged, "I just want to be alone," he half shouted, half cried.

"We're going to turn off Ryan's life support, your mother said that you should be there," he informed him steadily, surprising even himself with his own calmness.

For a moment the younger of the two was at a loss for what to do or say, "you can't," he said at last, having found his voice, "you can't kill him!"

Before Chaktoay could get a control on events, Aaron had pushed past him and was rushing out of the toilets and towards Ryan's room. "Aaron," Chakotay called after him as he went in pursuit of his son.

Kathryn sat on the side edge of her youngest son's bed, and studied his handsome face. His hair wasn't as dark as his father's, neither was his skin, but he was undoubtedly Chakotay's son. He got his large forehead from his dad, and the hairline that cut right across, framing the top of his face. She reached out and tenderly traced every part of his face with her fingers. His skin was still warm to the touch. On the outside he was his fathers son, but he'd grown up to think and act more like his mother.

Unlike Aaron and like his mother he was stubborn, determined to win at any cost, the top of his class in science related subjects, and the sort of person to take problems and worries, and roll them up into a little ball to place in the back of the mind. Maybe that's what had gone wrong, she thought as she ran her fingers through the hair that he'd grown a few inches since his father had left, as some sort of protest to be anything like Chakotay. Maybe, with no one to force him to open up, as Chakotay normally would have, he had resorted to self harm. She should have made more of an effort with him, then maybe…

The door behind her burst open and she turned her head to see Aaron burst through the doors.

"Mum, don't let them kill him," he pleaded, tears streaming down his face.

She opened her mouth to say that it was the right thing to do, but she couldn't bring herself to say the words. "I'm sorry," she said instead, breaking down into tears again herself.

The door to the room opened, and Chakotay and the Doctor entered. Aaron looked at them both for a moment, then back round at his mother, "please," he said between ragged breaths.

Kathryn held out her arm, and he went to it, crouching on his knees and holding her in a firm hug. She kissed the top of his head, and stroked his back with her palm. When she looked back up, the Doctor caught her eye, and asked a silent question. "Can you just hold on a minute?" she asked softly, and received a nod.

"Aaron, do you want to say goodbye to Ryan?" she asked, her voice sounding much calmer than she felt.

Aaron shook her head, "no, he's already gone," his voice was muffled as he leant against her.

Chakotay stepped forwards from the door, and went up to his youngest son. He leant over his son, and placed a hand on his head, and then a kiss on top of his hair. He wanted to say something, but couldn't think of words adequate enough to sum up an existence, and to apologise for a lifetime of mistakes, so he said nothing. He looked back at his wife, and she gave him a nod, moments later, Ryan's life support was turned off.

V

She was dressed in a long white dress than came down to her ankles, and she walked across the short cut grass bare foot. The top layer of her hair had been plaited behind her head, whilst the under layer flowed freely, moving gently in the soft breeze. She was looking around, searching the faces of the people in the crowd, until she saw Chakotay and gave him the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. Then she returned her attention to the task at hand, and her face became much more serious, but no less adorable.

The past couple of weeks had been difficult for everyone. Chakotay had informed his colleagues at the dig that he wouldn't be returning to finish it off, and he had taken a leave of absence from the university. No one had tried to talk him out of it, everyone knew what had happened.

There were many tears in those two weeks. Especially at the funeral. Gretchen, Kathryn's mother had been there, and had taken care of Taya, (who had not been too certain what was going on). Gretchen had explained to her granddaughter that they were there to bury and say goodbye to Ryan, but Taya didn't understand why they wanted to bury her brother beneath the soil, and had cried at the thought that he would be stuck and unable to get out.

Aaron had been withdrawn, and many nights hadn't bothered returning home. His parents had worried about it, but Chakotay told Kathryn not to worry after he had followed Aaron one night down to the beach, and watched him sit on the end of the peer for several hours. Everyone dealt with grief in different ways, and if Aaron needed to be alone, then Chakotay wasn't going to stop him.

Kathryn refused to stay still, to reflect on what had happened, and so kept herself busy. Chakotay let her, he knew that she was scared that if she stopped to think, then she would stop altogether. She was scared that she would break down, like she had when her father and the man she had been engaged to before she had met Chakotay, had died in a shuttle crash. She still never spoke of it, for fear that she would revert to her old habit of spending endless hours sleeping through the pain. Her husband worried she would do the same over their son's death, but he wasn't sure what he could do to help her.

No matter how people were now dealing with Ryan's death, one thing was certain; that they had all cried at one point. Either the moment they heard, or once the words had started to make sense. All except Chakotay. It wasn't that he was trying to keep a brave face; at night when Kathryn would turn to him in their bed, and cry into his shoulder, he wanted nothing more than to cry with her, but he couldn't. He saw pictures of his son, he saw his two remaining children cry, but still no tears came.

Now Chakotay watched her approach a boy of about ten, her wings bobbing up and down with each stop, "why are you crying?" she asked him, in a soft, carrying voice.

"Because I will never see Pick again," came the reply.

Kathryn leant across to him from the chair next to his, neither of their faces leaving the grass platform a few rows in front of them. "She looks perfect doesn't she?"

"But you don't have to see him, to know he will always be with you," she had remembered her lines correctly.

The boy frowned, "then how do I know if he's here or not?"

"Yes, she does," Chakotay said in a voice that was barely a whisper.

"He's in your heart silly," Yuna replied with a grin, and a few of the audience chuckled at the way she said it. Then, instead of explaining that she was the angel of the north, and she knew such things, she patted him on the shoulder, "don't worry," she told him, as if he was actually really upset.

The poor boy looked confused, and looked around at someone to step in and get their lines back on track. No one did, so he improvised, "are you and angel of the north?" he asked instead.

She seemed to remember what she was supposed to say, "yes," she said, looking a little panicked.

"Then I'll believe you," he held out his hand to her, and she took it, and they walked off the raised grass stage together, to receive a round of applause from the audience.

Kathryn put her hands together and smiled for the first time in some weeks, she turned to her husband to gage his reaction. He was looking straight ahead at the trees in the distance, tears now falling down his cheeks. She placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it firmly, and he turned to face her. Their gazes met, and after a moment had passed, he gave her a small smile, which she soon returned, and then the moment was gone. He wiped the tears from his face, and watched absently as the rest of the children came onto the stage, to bow as the audience clapped once more for them.

He cried again that night, as he had lain in bed beside Kathryn. She had been sleepy, but had wrapped an arm around him, and told him that she loved him, and although the gesture was small, it was enough to sooth him. But after that night, he never again cried for Ryan.

The end.


End file.
